One Condition (The Lust List: Kaidan Stone #1) by Nova Raines

playing dumb in the car.”
    A conflicted expression plays across his face. “No. When I first saw you… I thought you were someone else. For a moment.”
    Peyton. Knife through the heart, that. I drain my glass of wine, appreciating the warmth as it runs through me. I set my empty glass on a tall, round table beside the column. I shouldn’t have asked. I didn’t want to hear that.
    “Okay, well, is there a reason you brought me all the way out here?” I ask. “I’m pretty sure Ender’s gone off with some other girl by now.”
    “Would you have gone off with him?” He searches my face.
    Wow. He’s serious. He thinks I’m a slut. “At least Ender makes it clear what he wants.” It comes out sounding sharper than I intend, and I try to step around him to go back inside.
    Kaidan rests one arm on the column, blocking me in. He pulls my clutch from my tight grasp and sets it next to my glass on the table. He’s inches away from me now, and his dark eyes meet mine. Heat races through me, wine-induced or Kaidan-induced, I don’t know.
    He leans closer. “I’m pretty sure I made myself clear last time.”
    I glance at his full lips, remembering how they felt against mine in the Velvet Room, how his hardness felt against me, thin layers of fabric the only thing between us. Like now. I shiver in the night air and tear my gaze away.
    His other hand comes up and wraps around my chin, forcing my face toward him, forcing me to look at him again. A little flicker of excitement bubbles in my stomach, and I swallow and push his hand away.
    “Since we’re being honest,” I say, my voice low. “No. I don’t think you made yourself clear.”
    His eyes soften, and he leans in. My heart speeds up.
    “Then let me explain.” His lips crush against mine, and he presses me into the column. I’m dizzy with the feel of him, the scent of him. His tongue teases along the seam of my lips, but as I open my mouth to meet him, he shifts his lips to my ear.
    “I want you , Hayley,” he says, his voice husky with lust. He licks my ear and pushes me harder into the column with his leg. His lips press against me as his tongue trails a line down to my neck.
    Then his eyes meet mine again, and he watches me, watches to see what I’ll do as he runs his hand softly, slowly along my collarbone, down the length of body, coming to rest on my hip. I want him to touch me everywhere.
    He kisses me again. Then his hand returns to my shoulder and dips down, following the low cut of my dress, until his hand comes to a stop along the swell of my breast. He lightly caresses my skin, and I swallow, trying to keep my composure.
    But my nipples harden against the thin silky fabric of my gown, and his gaze travels there. That little smirk I love appears, and now he keeps his eyes on mine as he takes his forefinger, tracing slow, light circles around my breast, spiraling in, touching everywhere but the hard, aching point of my nipple.
    I suck in a breath, and the space between my legs is hot, throbbing, slick. I wish he would touch me already, wish he would press himself against me, so I could feel if he’s hard like the other night.
    We stay like that for a moment, both of us breathing hard, him holding me against the column. He leans in, as if to kiss me again, but doesn’t. My nipples ache, and I arch my lower back, trying to make his hand close over my breast.
    He smirks and drops his hand lower, preventing the touch. “I like this dress even better than the last one.”
    “But you’d like it better on the floor?” I ask, breathless.
    “Wouldn’t you?”
    My lips part, and he leans in to kiss me again.
    “Kaidan,” a male voice says.
    Kaidan’s nostrils flare, and he steps away from me, turning toward whatever jerk just interrupted us. I grab my purse and cross my arms over my hard nipples, hiding them, slumping against the column.
    The man steps into the low light where we’re standing. Devon Stone. He looks enough like Kaidan that I’d